Knowledge you can walk. Read the idea below, then step up to the general, across to peers or down to the specific.
Mental
Memory and Learning
Memory is how the mind stores and recalls information, and learning is how people gain new knowledge and skills.
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The idea
Memory is the mind's ability to encode, store and retrieve information when it is needed. Learning is the process of gaining new understanding, knowledge, skills, behaviors, values and preferences. The two work together: learning puts new information into memory, and memory keeps it so it can guide what you do later. Without memory, language, relationships and a sense of who you are could not develop.
Many scientists describe memory as a system with three parts: a sensory stage, short-term or working memory, and long-term memory. The sensory stage takes in signals from the outside world. Working memory handles information as it goes into storage and comes back out. Long-term memory keeps it for later. Explicit memory is the conscious recall of facts and events. Implicit memory works without conscious effort, as in procedural memory, the slow and gradual learning of skills such as riding a bike.
Some learning happens after a single event, such as being burned by a hot stove, but much skill and knowledge builds up through repeated experience. Children also learn rules and how to get along with others through play. Memory is not perfect: pain, weak attention and damage to brain areas such as the hippocampus can all reduce what is stored or recalled.
Check yourself
Question 1 of 2
How many weeks into pregnancy has a simple kind of learning been seen in unborn babies?
Composition
what it's made of
- Encoding — Turning what you sense into a form the brain can store.
- Storage — Keeping information over time, briefly in working memory or for years in long-term memory.
- Retrieval — Bringing stored information back when it is needed.
- Practice — Repeated experience builds up much of what people know and can do.
- Attention — The less attention a new experience gets, the less of it is encoded for storage.
Connection
how it relates
Under Mental
Change
how and why it evolves
- Past
- Human learning starts at birth and may begin even before it: a simple kind of learning has been seen in unborn babies as early as 32 weeks into pregnancy.
- Now
- Today fields such as educational psychology, neuropsychology and cognitive science study how learning works, and their findings shape how people teach.
- Next
- Because learning continues until death, research on keeping memory sharp in old age will likely keep growing.